4 Challenges and Solutions of E-learning

Written by Neha Goel

Regardless of the profession and the role an employee plays, it is imperative to keep the employees up-to-date on the organization’s new products, policies and procedures to make them remain competitive. But, when you consider some of the factors such as the cost, schedule allotted and training the employees who are geographically spread out, you would realize how difficult it is to impart training. An eLearning program through which the employees can take up training at their own pace and in their free time could be a solution to these problems. But not to forget, eLearning comes with lots of challenges that have to be addressed while delivering the online training.

Challenge 1: Lack of awareness

One of the major challenges of eLearning is that the employees or the learners are unaware of effectiveness of eLearning. They might feel that eLearning is not as effective as classroom training and that the trainees would miss the opportunity of face-to-face interaction.

Solution:

Promote eLearning: Promoting eLearning could be an effective way to initiate an eLearning program. Arrange for the marketing campaign and use it as a base for creating awareness among the audience. Other ways could be through publishing eBooks, blogs and even through hosting an event on eLearning.
Develop the communication: Developing effective communication among the audience could be another approach towards creating awareness. Your audience would quickly accept eLearning once they get to know what eLearning is all about and how it could be beneficial to them.

Challenge 2: Motivating Learners

Motivating learners is one of the common challenges faced by the eLearning developers. When you deploy the course and leave the learners to their devices, chances are that the learners may not take up the eLearning course effectively as they would do in classroom training. Hence the challenge is – how can you motivate your learners and present a good learning experience to them?

Solution:

Stimulate learner’s curiosity: You need to motivate your learners in the beginning of the course itself, so as to keep them engaged throughout the course. For this, you may ask the learners some thought-provoking questions. Ask them to describe a situation or use some surprising statements that would help the learners take up the course with great zeal and enthusiasm.

Set clear objectives: Explain the learners in brief what they will learn after taking the course and how the course would benefit them. For example, you might explain that after completion of the module, they will be able to identify and respond to various security threats that occur at the workplace.

Create a scenario or tell a story: Scenarios and stories are considered to be powerful tools in motivating your learners because when the learners find something relevant to their profession and experience, they would surely want to know and take up the course.

Challenge 3 Course content:

Now, when the learner is onboard with the eLearning course, it is time that the content of the course needs to be focused on. A well designed course depends upon the content of the course. Most of the time, the content received from the client is unstructured and difficult to comprehend. You may receive content which does not contain enough information to be covered under a certain topic.

Solution:

Involve the SME: One way to overcome this challenge is to involve the Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) in the eLearning project. A Subject Matter Expert is proficient in various subjects and guides the instructional designers on the content received. They ensure that the content is accurate and has no gaps. This way, the SMEs would greatly help solve the problems faced regarding the content.

Challenge 4: Evaluating effectiveness

One of the common challenges in eLearning could be to evaluate whether your course has the intended impact on the learners. How do you determine that your course is attaining its goal of meeting the learning requirements of the employees or trainees?

Solution:

This challenge could be mitigated by incorporating effective assessments in the form of quizzes and puzzles in your course. Publishing the course through an LMS helps keep track of learner’s activities and progress. It also provides the scores and results of the assessments taken by the learners.

These are some of the challenges and suggested solutions in eLearning. Hope the blog post was helpful. Would be glad to know your comments.

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CommLab India addresses the learning and development needs of major organizations through its custom and rapid e-learning solutions, translations and mobile learning services. Since 2000, we have been offering technology-enabled solutions to accelerate workforce performance.

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